Fires in wooded areas present issues of tremendous concern and are a serious problem. All too frequently large forest fires rage out of control. These fires sweep through forests, woodlands, and communities, resulting in loss of forests, homes, other flammable property, animals and even human life. Efforts employed to contain wildfires are not always successful. Controlling and preventing the spread of forest fires is often a difficult undertaking, fraught with frustration and danger. Furthermore, where the fire is spread over a sizable area, additional problems exist inasmuch as the area to protect can grow in intensity and size at a tremendous rate. The result often is that the fire will spread quickly in multiple directions. Dry and/or windy conditions compound these problems and further complicate efforts to control a fire safely.
There are presently accepted methods and techniques for controlling and preventing the spread of fires. These methods include traditional uses of firefighters and equipment, including such techniques as the dumping of large amounts of water or fire suppressing chemicals from aircrafts onto the fire, creating fire lines across the direction of travel of the fire, spraying water or fire suppressing chemicals on to the fire by firefighters on the ground, and back burning an area towards the fire in a controlled manner so as to effectively remove wood or other sources of fuel from an approaching fire.
Dumping water or chemicals from aircraft is expensive, time consuming, and at times inefficient or ineffective. This is due, at least in part, to the fact that one has to have access to water, means to retrieve the water, and means for delivering the water onto the fire. These are serious obstacles because forest fires often occur in remote and dry locations.
While the creation of fire lines is an effective way of controlling the spread of a fire, it has inherent difficulties in that it is very manpower intensive. Creation of a fire line involves the removal of trees or other burnable materials, which are often fixed in place. While this can be more easily accomplished through the use of bulldozers or other heavy machinery, these machines are expensive and often not available where they are needed. Additionally, wildfires often occur in remote locations where it is simply impossible to transport heavy machinery due to a lack of suitable roads.
With respect to the traditional firefighting method of using a controlled back burn to augment a fire line, this method is too often rendered ineffective by special geographical conditions and the dangers posed by the approaching fire. Back burning is typically used adjacent to a fire line created in front or along the flanks of an approaching fire. Therefore, for a back burn to be effective it presupposes the existence or a manmade or naturally occurring fire line. As discussed above, difficulties are inherent in creating such a fire line. Additionally, starting a back burn is itself a procedure fraught with peril for the individual on the ground who must start the fire.
The application of water or fire suppressing chemicals to a fire from the ground remains an effective technique where sufficient manpower and water/chemicals are available. However, transporting the required amounts of water or chemicals is difficult. The terrain in which many forest fires occur is frequently not conducive to transporting large quantities of these substances due to a lack of roads. Additionally, the application of these substances from the ground requires firefighters to come into close proximity with the fire, creating a risk of injury or even death.
In summary, there is still a great need for new approaches and techniques to contain, control, and extinguish forest fires.